Fearful security guard fakes assault

A Swiss security guard who was afraid of working alone at night has admitted he invented stories of being attacked in the hope he would be given a partner.

Police in the eastern town of Schaffhausen said the 20-year-old even injured himself on one occasion to lend his stories more credibility.

The police said they launched an investigation after receiving a call for help from the young man during the summer. He claimed to have been attacked by two men while keeping a watch on a shop in a suburb.

In the course of the investigation, they found out he had allegedly been the victim of a near-identical attack three months earlier in a neighbouring canton. In the police report on that attack, he said he had suffered knife wounds trying to defend himself.

However, the young man admitted making it all up after police confronted him about inconsistencies in his stories.

He told them he was so afraid about being alone at night that he had cut himself in the hope of persuading his employers to give him different tasks or put a more courageous guard on the job with him.

swissinfo with agencies